


Everyone needs coffee-cake.

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Maria's hobby is cooking, Sam is a mental health professional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 15:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: After the talk with Dr Ross, Sam sends Steve home.





	Everyone needs coffee-cake.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic occurs during Sam's visit to New York in [your blue-eyed boys (1: someone's bound to get burned) chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700/chapters/3595928), specifically right after Betty explains what she suspects about Bucky's prosthetic. It follows [Meeting again for the first time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5700526) by about a day and three quarters or so.

After the talk with Dr Ross, Sam sends Steve home. 

Partly he sends Steve home because Steve needs to go home and rest. But partly - mostly if he's honest - Sam sends Steve home because there is actually a hard limit to Sam's ability to deal with Steve looking like someone just stabbed him, gutted him, told him his childhood pet died, and sucker-punched him all at the same time, except with a veneer of helplessly frustrated anger on the top. And Sam has hit that limit. Hard. 

He can't help thinking about the someone's-kid comparison. After a few minutes, he actually sends Laura a text: _here's an invasive question for you: how much of the burnout with the refugee children work was because you couldn't handle how devastated the parents would get?_

Because it's what she used to do, before she came to the VA - she spent years with an NGO doing counselling and advocacy. In fact, she takes a kind of morbid mischievous glee to answering, when asked why she started working there, _Oh, I burned out at my old job, and so far this has been easier._ It's a good litmus test, too: if they don't get it, then they're probably not going to get . . . much. On the other hand, if they look at her in bafflement and/or horror, they know what's going on. 

Her return is actually pretty prompt, and is an all-caps _NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT AT LEAST._

Sam is not shocked. 

Even though he doesn't say anything, she adds, _You know I say this with all the requisite background:_

_You have not yet suffered until you have had to sit in a room while a child describes something horrible that happened to them_

_And their parent's listening_

_and you watch that parent's FACE._

_It doesn't matter what the face is._

_It doesn't matter how that person handles the grief._

_IT IS HELL._

_and you know that however horrible you feel it's WORSE FOR THAT PARENT._

_And you think nothing could possibly be worse._

_Until you have the interview where the parent doesn't react._

_Either because they don't care._

_Or because they are so burned out they don't have anything left._

_And you know you could, for at least some of them, interview the child alone - except then more than half the time you're panicking child and parent and mostly becoming an instrument of re-traumatization, at least for the first few times. So you literally can't win._

Then she sends, _what prompted the question?_

Sam sighs and texts back, _found some stuff out today, and then had to send Steve home so I could stop watching him be upset, before we started a great self-reinforcing spiral._

Laura says, _Smart man. Excellent choice. I wholeheartedly validate this decision. But yes. I could have actually worked with the kids for a lot longer. Just not the parents. It ate me._

It does what Sam needed it to, which is to let him stop feeling like a guilty failure. 

He figures the chances of a communal dinner invitation are pretty low. Steve'd been the one to say it, but Sam'd recognized the expression on Rhodes' face from the inside out too - though for once just from work, not with Riley. One of Riley's saving graces had been that if Sam pointed _out_ he was being fucked up and needed to take a break or have a goddamn nap, he didn't tend to fight it. 

Might be an idiot about pushing himself _up_ to that point, so Sam _had_ to tell him, as one of his little neurotic ways of checking to see if Sam still cared, but once he got there he'd grow a brain. And he got better about it over the years, too, especially once Sam got it through his head he could just _ask_. That he could say, or even hell broadly _hint_ , that he felt like shit or was starting to feel like he was going nuts or like his sense of reality was splitting on him. 

( _"Yeah okay, explain this one to me."_

_"Yeah what, already?"_

_"You think Cara's an idiot?"_

_"What? No!"_

_"You think I'm an idiot?"_

_"What are you fucking trying - "_

_"Just shut the fuck up and follow me for a sec okay? We're in a fucking dinghy in the middle of the fucking ocean we're going fucking nowhere until they get here just fucking go with it."_

_"Fuck you. Whatever."_

_"So you think I'm an idiot."_

_"Jesus Fucking - no, Wilson, I don't think you're an idiot, though right now I really fucking think you're fucking irritating and you fucking - "_

_"Yeah shut up. Okay, you think Kahn's an idiot?"_

_"What?"_

_"Kahn. The motherfucking colonel, you know, that guy who gives us orders, short, got that fucking horrible - "_

_"Jesus motherfucking Frog I know who Kahn is_ no _."_

_"Okay so here's what I got, you fucking knob, explain this to me: you don't think we're fucking idiots, so what - you think you somehow_ tricked _Cara into deciding to marry you, you tricked me into being your best friend, you tricked Kahn into_ putting you in this fucking program _and yet at the_ same time _somehow you're fucking stupid. I mean I'm just starting with this one, fucker, I got the same shit for all the rest of the bullshit you just said, but let's just fucking start there. You just fucking sit there and explain to me how that one fucking works. I got time, the ocean's not listening."_

_" . . .I don't . . . I just - "_

_"Yeah that's what I fuckin' thought. How about next time when you_ start _going crazy you just ask me to fuckin' remind you that's bullshit, okay?_ Before _you work yourself into a fucking shitfit."_ ) 

God save kids from distant and impossible-to-please parents, Sam thinks, and ends up with the sour tail of the thought being, _not that He seems to've done very well at that so far._

And that's a pretty good diagnostic signal, that kind of thought. When he starts wondering if God's an asshole, Sam knows he needs to go find something else to do, because he's gone right down the slope of Unhelpful Mental Patterns. Preferably something physically engrossing and even exhausting. And soon. 

He decides to go try out the pool, the one just for lane swimming. 

Sam learned how to swim as a kid, but it wasn't until he met Riley - survivor of his dad's obsession with the fucking swim-team and his mother's ridiculous Olympian dreams - that he found out that he could honestly _enjoy_ it. That it could be nice, just swimming lengths, just going over and over, rather than swimming as part of messing around in the water. It turned out to all came down to the flip-turn, which was the magic part: it turned out that once he knew how to do that, swimming lengths became this sort of . . . endless train of motion, almost like flying. 

It's a nice setup, not that he's even a little bit surprised. There's goggles to borrow; the underwater speakers are pretty good and play some satellite radio station that's got a pretty broad mix of music with almost no commercials. The lanes are nice and wide, and marked for different speeds: Sam watches for a minute or two, getting a feel for where he is compared to the people in the water, and picks the slower of the medium-speed lanes. 

He skips bothering with any kickboards, floats, drills, or bothering to count his lengths - he's not here for a training program, he's here for the exertion and the meditation that comes from doing front-crawl in endless circles. Both of which start working for him pretty fast. 

Sam recommends swimming to most of his clients. It doesn't work for all of them, because nothing works for everybody; but if they don't _know_ it doesn't work, he tells them to give it a shot. If you know your basics, it makes you regulate your breathing, and it's pretty good for low-impact exercise, and all kinds of other reasons. It's usually a pretty hard sell, because they all think it's for old ladies, but he'll even nudge some of them towards some kind of aquafit thing. 

Sometimes even by saying, _honestly you'll probably end up with a whole class full of grammas being nice to you and talking about how you're such a great young person and all that crap_. It's surprising how that can be a draw. External validation of your existence. 

Sam goes until his arms start feeling rubbery.

Then he soaks in the hot-tub for a while, and ends up chatting with a couple other people there - older white guy who turns out to make music boxes and work in the R&D labs, and a tiny young Korean woman who talks with the jerky stop-start nervousness of serious social anxiety. 

She's got a bit of an accent and says she just got here a couple months ago. She talks about coming from Seoul, but a few things she says makes Sam kinda suspect she came to NYC _through_ Seoul, but grew up in North rather than South Korea. He's not sure, though, so he's definitely not going to say anything. And either way, he has to remind certain kinds of instincts that he's _still not in the Air Force anymore_ and she doesn't actually have a CO he can go drop a hint to about maybe giving her a hand feeling more integrated and less alone. 

Instead he tries to drop a few gentle suggestions in _her_ direction about some resources she might be able to look for - social spaces, activity clubs, that kind of thing. She looks interested when he mentions archery, so he adds that he's pretty damn sure that you can find an archery range somewhere pretty easy to get to from Manhattan. He's never looked, but it's fucking New York: there's got to be something. Multiple somethings. 

At that point the older man chuckles and points out that if she can find at least twenty other people in the building who like the idea, she could probably suggest adding one to the Tower - and since there's thousands of people here, he's pretty sure she'd be able to. She looks even more interested, and asks him how she could go about finding anyone. 

Sam leaves them chatting about how to use the company social media areas to connect with coworkers for that kind of thing, feeling tired out but a lot less down than when he started. It's nice. 

He showers off and comes out of the bathroom to find a message on the room's screen from Hill, asking if he's in/would mind having someone knock on the door.

It doesn't take that long to think about. It's about ten to four, and it's not like he's got any more plans except maybe vegging out and having a few beers before finding something for dinner. He can't think why she wants to talk to him, but Sam really doesn't mind at all, so he lets her know - at least, he answers the message, from the screen - and then pulls on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of socks. 

There's a possibility he'd had something clever in mind to say when he opens the door to Hill's knock, but it goes straight out of his head because the smell coming from the tea-towel-covered plate in her hand is that fucking amazing. It means his stomach reminds him he just swam for about an hour and lunch was a long time ago and yes _please and thank you_. That's the kind of thing that runs every other thought out of your head. 

Clearly it shows on his face because Maria's got a satisfied look. "Mind if I come in?" she asks, as close to brightly as a woman like her gets. 

"You know," Sam's mouth says for him without _much_ consultation from his whole brain, "not that I mean anything by it, but I just gotta say up until right now my life has had a _terrible_ lack of gorgeous women showing up at my door with amazing baking, and if I'm dreaming I just hope it waits till after I have some of that to get weird." 

He kinda wants to smack himself when he realizes what he just said. Fortunately, she laughs, and Sam is _pretty secure_ in his assessment of Maria Hill as not being the kind of woman who laughs even if she's uncomfortable or offended. Unless it's laughing at the apologetic wreck of the person she's just told off for being an ass, but that's not super classy so he kinda doubts even that. If he'd just been an ass, as far as she was concerned, he's pretty sure she'd let him know. But she just grins instead. 

"Pull-apart coffee-cake," she says. "It's actually even whole wheat, and to be honest I am usually categorically against that kind of thing." 

"What," Sam says, stepping back and holding the door open for her, "pretending that if you make it out of whole wheat it's somehow healthy or something?" 

"That," Maria agrees, putting the plate on the kitchenette counter. "Now don't get me wrong, there's some whole grain breads that taste like someone stole the recipe from God's personal card box, but you make stuff out of whole grain whatever because you want that taste, not to pretend it'll taste the same as something else but be magically good for you. So let's be real, here, this," she tips the plate up a bit in his direction, "is like five days' worth of processed sugar, a crapload worth of eggs and butter, and the whole wheat flour just makes it taste even better." 

"Sounds perfect," Sam says, quite honestly. His stomach's getting pretty emphatic and he realizes by the steam when she takes the tea-towel off that the cake must've just come out of the oven. He's pretty sure he's awake, but he does mean it about the dream, even so. 

Maria's got a small tote over her arm, and pulls out a bottle of what turns out to be cold-brew coffee that she heats up to go with the cake. She also has a small bottle of Baileys' and holds it up like a question. 

"I definitely don't have to drive anywhere, so sure," Sam says, "but then I'm gonna have to be suspicious and shit for a minute and ask why I'm getting cake. Meaning no ingratitude whatsoever, I am thrilled about the cake. Just, you know." He gives a little shrug, ignoring his stomach's protest about asking before he gets the cake, in case he doesn't. 

"Guilt offering," Maria says, ruefully, passing him his plate and mug and picking up her own. She nods towards the little living-room, which is undoubtedly more comfortable than the two-person kitchen-table. 

Sam suspects there are bigger guest-rooms and probably fancier ones but the fact of the matter is, for a three-day weekend he'd just feel damn awkward in what amounted to a luxury apartment. This one still has a king bed he feels like he needs someone to share it with and a bathroom that's kind of like a spa, along with comfy couch and armchair and all the rest of the amenities, and that's plenty. 

Sam gives Maria a dubious look as they sit down. "I'm having a hard time imagining what it could be for," he admits, and he means it. Which makes him a little nervous, but he does his best to hide that. It's just as likely she's feeling guilty for something that doesn't need it. 

"First, I was kind of being a jerk yesterday morning," Maria says, which sort of reinforces that guess. At Sam's expression she amends, "Okay maybe just being a shit, but still - I do have better damn manners." 

He'd probably have a better immediate answer, but instead Sam is completely distracted by his first mouthful of the cake, which really is amazing. So he just shrugs, falls back on the truth and says, "Not really. I mean, I was the one who hijacked your run. I don't know how likely it is to come up again," he adds, "but just in case, I promise I will not be offended if you say no, or anything." Again, Sam's pretty sure Maria's not going to hesitate over that kind of thing - but it could be hard to tell. 

Riley, of all people, had been the one to finally hit the nail right on the head with that. Sam remembers the expressions on the face of the other guys, at the table in the bar, and is pretty sure he was wearing a lesser version, as Riley said, _Dude. Women say 'yes' to shit they'd rather say 'no' to all the damn time because they already know it's gonna be more work dealing with your hurt feelings and whining than it is to put up with you. Fuck man. You guys. You know how it is. It's like when your gramma or your aunt asks you to come do something and you really don't wanna but if you say no you're gonna have to explain why and the reason better be good enough and if it's not you're gonna hear about it for the next ten years - now think like, nine times out of ten, they know you're gonna be the same way. And dude don't give me that shit you_ just did it with the bartender _I watched you._

Sam'd wondered how Riley figured that shit out, because it wasn't the only time Riley clued into that kind of shit. Years, a grave and a Masters' degree later, Sam knows it's amazing what being hypersensitive to rejection, being sure you have nothing to offer, not trusting anyone's word and being too damn smart for your own good can do for you. 

But Maria waves that away. "Yeah I didn't think you'd be," she says, with a slight wry smile that he feels like is more directed at herself than anything. "And I appreciate the understanding - but I was totally being a shit, and then I was picking your brain like you work for me." She shrugs. "Like I said: my career hasn't always been good for my manners." 

"If you say so," is what Sam settles on, because arguing with someone about this kind of thing is never worth it. Especially not in situations like this.

Maria takes a bite of her cake, and looks at him thoughtfully for a minute. 

"Plus," she says, after she takes a swig of coffee to wash it down, "I kinda fibbed a bit. Couple of times. Mostly force of habit, some because it's uncomfortable, but." Her gaze is level. "That's not right, considering. Definitely not fair to you. So." 

It's not like Sam's surprised: secrecy _is_ a habit, he should know. And he's not going to take offense, because that would be stupid. He just acknowledges that with a little gesture with his fork. 

Maria crosses one leg over the other. "For starters," she says, "I know exactly why SI's prepared to throw down for Steve. And it's got as much to do with Pepper as Stark, because Pepper's the one who got kidnapped, strapped to a table, injected with an experimental super-substance, and treated like someone's trophy. And then damn near died, and would have, if she _hadn't_ been full of Extremis at the time. So - " 

"Jesus Christ," is what comes out of Sam's mouth. It's visceral and honest, and he sits up - the plate's empty and while he damn well plans to have more, he'll wait a second - and reaches for his coffee. "Fuck," he adds. It seems appropriate. "Shit, I hadn't even thought about that." 

"Nobody does, and honestly we'd rather keep it that way," Maria says, picking imaginary lint off her own jeans. "It's not something you want to keep front and centre in your head, you know? Honestly she's done damn well dealing with it, it just makes a few things a bit more - " 

"No _shit_ ," Sam agrees, emphatic. 

"Now," Maria goes on, a bit wry, "Stark _also_ got kidnapped, tortured, and had his enemies try to use him to make a super-weapon, so - " 

Somehow Sam hadn't made _that_ connection either, and now both of them criss-cross in his head, both and more, and he has to put his coffee down again so he can put his face in his hands. 

He's not sure if he's laughing or something else, or if the laughter is standing in for something else, or what. Jesus. Let's take probably the most terrifying power-couple on the planet and have them _both_ overidentify with Barnes. Yeah, that'll do it. And sure it's _helpful_ but it's also a whole new kind of potentially volatile, and Sam'd just like it if stuff wanted to take the chance to get simpler. 

Not that he thinks it's likely. But it would be _nice_. 

He can hear Madlen laughing at him. 

After a second, he sits back and rests his arm along the low back of the couch. "Does it ever worry you," he asks, because he can't help it, not right now, and because this is probably the only place where someone who really does get what he means can ever answer him, "that _this many_ of the most powerful and dangerous people in the world are fucking mental health disasters?"

It's not the most elegant way of putting it, and it might not be fair. But it's honest. 

"Daily," Maria replies immediately, emphatically. " _Daily_." 

Which, okay: it's a nice bit of validation. Sam did kind of hate the feeling of being alone with that one. It's nice to know someone else out there is just as horrified and concerned. 

"Especially Stark, Steve and Banner," she goes on. "But it is what it is." 

"I gotta say, that's one of my least favourite sayings," Sam admits. "I mean it's usually true, but that doesn't make me like it anymore."

"Believe me," Maria tells him. "I _feel_ your pain. But - " 

She holds her coffee in both hands and shrugs. "Phil - so," she says, like she's backing up, "okay, for background - SHIELD had seven levels of field agent, numbered one to seven, ascending order, nothing fancy. Level three is where the covert ops started. People don't understand," she notes, like someone who's just been sidetracked by the inside of their own head, "how many _people_ this kind of shit actually takes, to do." 

"Trust me," Sam says. "I know." 

"Or that there's incredible value in a consistent, reliable, well-trained level one agent," she goes on, and Sam lifts his mug in acknowledgement. "You need them! I'm running a strike op, I _need_ fucking reliable people who are good at their damn jobs monitoring comms and checking background. They're fucking valuable. People don't have a fucking clue, I swear." 

Sam says, "You mean like how the movies think the whole fucking military's made up of captains and majors?" 

" _Yes_ ," Maria agrees, vehement. "Exactly. And that 'private' just means you suck more than anyone who outranks you. Did you ever watch that HBO _Band of Brothers_ show?" 

"That part in the woods," Sam says, knows _immediately_ what she's thinking of, the moment she means. "With the CO, what's his name, Winters and his buddy, talking about how that one lieutenant is a fucking shitstain - "

"But he doesn't want to give the other guy, Compton - doesn't want to give him the company, promote him," Maria picks up, "because he wants at least _one_ competent platoon leader." 

"Fuck I felt bad for him, man," Sam says, laughing a little ruefully. "And like that one sergeant, the First Sergeant, whatever his name was, some brand name but I forget - like _Christ_ the man deserved that field promotion, but - " 

" _I know_ ," Maria exclaims, "I kept thinking, you have to give it to him because the man pulled off a damn miracle, but who the hell are you going to replace that kind of First Sergeant with?" 

"Luckily the war ended," Sam says, and she laughs. 

"Yeah, right. You know what my favourite fucking part of running StarkSec is?" Maria asks, and when Sam shakes his head, she says, "I don't have to change somebody's fucking job title to give them accolades and raise their damn pay. If someone's really good at - let's just be straight here - being a First Sergeant? And they're okay with it? I can just _keep them there_. But pay them more. I don't have to promote people to the level of their incompetence, or just because there's no other way to reward a fucking good job." 

" . . .you know, if you think about it, the military rank system is kinda fucked up," Sam muses. 

"Yeah, because we inherited it from the days when the difference between having a commission or not was about what kind of person you were in the rest of the world," Maria says, glancing upwards for patience. "Ranked society aristocratic bullshit. And it's so ground in now, good luck fixing it without breaking the whole thing." She sighs, sips her coffee and then pauses. "Where the hell was I going with this?" 

"Field agent levels," Sam supplies. Then adds, "And keep talking but unless you're gonna chase me off with a broom or something I am definitely having more cake." 

"The whole cake's yours," Maria tells him, "and being a grownup means you get to decide when to have cake for dinner." 

"There's gotta be _some_ kind of compensation," Sam retorts. "Anyway. Field agent levels." 

"Right," Maria agrees. "So seven levels. Ones and twos, overt ops. Three is where the covert work started - three and four, about the kind of stuff you'd expect to see from the cops, you know? If we're being honest. Some of the time - a lot of the time! - that's all you need. That was in fact the _majority_ of that kind of op." 

"Right," Sam agrees, coming back with the whole cake plate and putting it on the coffee table before cutting himself a piece. "So level five - ?" 

Maria chuckled, soft and short. Sam gestures to her plate with the knife, and she nods. "Thanks," she says, taking it up. "Let's put it this way: not many people stayed at level five very long. We did have a few," she notes. "STRIKE were all fives. But fives were the people we buried most often." 

Sam's eyebrows go up, though his mouth is full. 

"Fives . . . " Maria sighs. "Mostly, either you got killed, or you burnt out, or if you were lucky you saw the burnout coming and requested a transfer. Five is where - well, first off everybody had to be a high level generalist. Good at everything," she elaborates. "So it's where the coursework and training that makes people go bug-eyed starts." 

"I think I can imagine," Sam says, slowly. "Like - " 

"Like how to fake enjoyment of sex with someone you'd rather push in a tar-pit than fuck," Maria says, bluntly. "Those are usually the kind that make people choke. And the kind that made people realize they'd rather step back down a clearance level after all. But fives were still usually part of fairly comprehensive ops, comprehensive extraction plans, all that kind of thing." 

"And you still lost a lot of them," Sam notes, making sure to keep any blame out of his voice. Not that he has any to put in, but it's a tricky kind of subject and it's easy for someone else to hear condemnation even if you don't mean it, and Sam's not interested in going there. Maria shrugs. 

"Dangerous work," she says, seriously. "Our attrition-rate was still quite a bit lower than, say, the traffickers or terrorists we'd be hunting, but on the other hand there's thousands of them and I can still count the ones who make it past fifty on one hand." 

It's a point. Sam nods, and says, "Last two levels?" 

"Right, the other reason people don't - didn't - stay at five long," Maria goes on, "is that it was kind of the clearing-house grade. Anyone good enough to survive, whether you're talking literally or you're talking being up to coping with the mental stress - if they didn't get out, most of the time they'd end up either taking the exam to graduate to sixes, or they'd pull off a field-promotion." 

Suddenly she smiles and says, "The latter tended to be kinda like what events handed you. Except you were working on the _really_ hard mode, seeing as you'd've been jumping from three to six without any of the coursework." 

Sam laughs the laugh that's more about being startled and not sure how to react than something being all that funny. Although maybe it is kinda funny. He acknowledges it - though he's not sure he's ready to take on all the implications - with a tip of his fork. 

"Sixes had to be able to work pretty independently," Maria says. "One handler, little backup, broad mission objectives, a lot of use-your-judgement. The thing is, there aren't a lot of people who can do that kind of thing long-term. And so something Phil used to say a _lot_ was, 'there's no normal past five.'" Her half-smile's inward-focused for a second. Then she says, "Most rookies thought he was talking about 1700 hours, five in the afternoon, and you could sort of see it click when they realized he meant _level_ five." 

_Phil_ is _Phil Coulson_ , the back of Sam's mind catches up with supplying - he'd been pretty sure he knew the name, but it also kinda didn't matter, so he'd just let the whole moment of recognition and search slide back behind his active thoughts while he listened and ate his cake. Sam doesn't know a lot about the guy, other than he made a pretty positive impression on Steve for someone Steve knew for all of twenty-four hours and in spite of hitting a bunch of awkward notes. Sam knows he was Fury's _other_ right hand, so to speak, and the way Maria says his name now what she's saying makes Sam suspect he's the dead colleague she was talking about yesterday morning. 

All of which indicates a pretty bright guy, about people. 

For a minute or two Sam thinks about it. "Makes sense," he says eventually. "I mean as far as the work goes, just about all of it depends on fucking around with all the things humans rely on to stay sane. Including what you can rely on, which will _really_ mess with us." He's thinking about Natasha's face when Fury said he didn't know who to trust, and thinking about how in the graveyard Fury didn't try to talk to her. And how she didn't come closer before he was clearly leaving. 

"Exactly," Maria agrees. "Phil's point is that if you're going to demand five-and-up levels of work, you honestly have no choice but to start accommodating the quirks in people's personalities that come with the territory. Otherwise you won't _have_ anyone." 

A thought crosses Sam's mind and he chuckles a bit himself. "You were Army, right," he says, because he's pretty goddamn confident in _that_ guess, thanks. It doesn't even take much thought. 

"You can tell," Maria replies, sardonic, obviously more than self-aware enough to know that. "Gosh I'm surprised." 

"Why'd you leave?" Sam asks. 

"Because I spent a full tour in Iraq doing fucking paperwork," she replies. There's still a bit of bitterness in her voice, not that Sam can blame her. "I sat behind the goddamn keyboard and ran stupid errands while cocky assholes went out and fucked up, and I realized that was going to be my whole goddamn career, watching them get fucking promoted above me because they had fucking 'experience' that I'd've done better except stupid rules kept me updating people's damn files. And getting citizenship to a country that didn't have such bass-acwkard bullshit about women in combat was gonna take too long - and then Phil came and did a presentation about why people should join SHIELD that happened to be really explicit about claiming equal opportunity. So I decided to give it a shot." 

And ended up assistant director, before she was thirty-five. Sam still wonders how many people choked on _that_ one, but suspects Nick Fury gave a negative number of fucks. A negative number of fucks on the Kelvin scale of fucks. 

"Fair," Sam says. "Very fair. Well, you know _why_ the Air Force is full of a bunch of slackasses with the worst discipline in the military, right?" He knows she'll pick up the irony in his tone, and he's pretty sure she'll pick up the point. "Here, the UK, Canada, Aussies, Kiwis, all those kinds of places?" 

"Yeah," Maria says, amused. "Because if you were willing to go up in the World War One inflammable death traps and managed to come back and do it again, they more or less had to put up with whatever shit you threw at them - " 

" - because nobody else was gonna do it," Sam finishes. "And just about anybody who was gonna be willing to _do_ that was gonna throw shit, because that's just who's willing to get up in a death-trap _again_ after he survived it yesterday, because you'd have to be a fucking lunatic. Yeah." 

"Yeah more or less exactly like that," Maria agrees. "The Sixes had quite a bit of leeway, because you have to give it. And then you got to the Sevens." Her smile turns full of a certain amount of nostalgic schadenfreude, if Sam's any judge. He's seen it on many faces. "The Sevens drove Sitwell up the fucking wall," she says, wistfully. 

"You didn't like him?" Sam guesses, but Maria shakes her head. 

"No, you know what? Barton _hated_ the bastard, which meant Natasha was neutral at best, but I got along fucking fine with Jasper Sitwell. I had a lot of sympathy with him. I mean, fuck, I was Army, you know?" She shrugs, palms up. "No, that's why I'm so fucking pissed at him now, that I just kinda . . . retroactively enjoy all his suffering." 

"Okay that's pretty fair," Sam agrees. "He didn't take well to people breaking policy, or whatever you called it?" 

"Barton was a Seven," Maria tells him. "And Natasha, obviously, but Barton was. Hawkeye. You met him?" 

"Nah," he says. "Steve told some stories, though. I liked the one about the cartel guys and the compound, bad intel meaning they went basically to bust the guy out and he was pinned down in his vantage point sniping the enemy one by one while keeping himself entertained by keeping up a one-sided rendition of the scene with the French guys from _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_." 

"Jesus, I remember that," Maria says, briefly looking heavenward. "Wedged in a corner you could barely call cover, shouting, 'Go away! Or I will taunt you a second time!' when they were telling him to throw down his fucking gun." 

"Steve said he'd been up for like . . . forty-eight hours straight, I think?" Sam notes. "And that he was a fucking creepy shot for someone who was brand new fresh, let alone for that, and that it was kinda disturbingly like he could read Natasha's mind." 

That'd been when Steve was explaining where he thought Natasha went. 

"So what do you figure Barton's relationship with paperwork was?" Maria asks. 

"I'm guessing he kinda didn't have one," Sam says after thinking about it for a minute, because combine her bothering to ask the question with someone whose response to life-threatening danger is entertaining himself with Monty Python quotes, and "crossing Ts and dotting Is" is not exactly what you're expecting. 

"The only time Clint ever willingly wrote a report," Maria tells him, "was if he, personally, legitimately saw a reason why a written record of his impressions of the mission was actually necessary. I can count those times on one hand, and have fingers left over. There came a point where Phil's support staff just started pre-writing the reports and getting Barton to sign them, because it was _less work_ and less wasted time and kept us from getting 'reports' that consisted of 'Went to Paris. Achieved objective. Came home.' Or that were so vindictively detailed they included every single bathroom visit."

Sam chokes a bit. "Seriously?" and Maria nods with the emphatic precision of someone who had that argument way too many times. 

"One of the other Sevens had a pet parrot who went with him _everywhere_ that wasn't a mission. _Every. Where._ " She mock-shudders. 

Sam shakes his head. 

"Otherwise an exemplary agent," Maria elaborates. " _His_ reports were a joy of efficiency, clarity and prompt delivery. But that fucking parrot went _everywhere_. Like he took all of his weird, all of his messed up, and handled it by becoming hyper-attached to that bird." 

She sighs. "Point being," she finishes, "after all those digressions: I think about Phil saying that a lot, when it comes to Stark and Banner and whoever else. That you can't really be what they are without being some kind of fucked up. And maybe we should just be grateful so far it's all kinds you can more or less contain." She pauses, and repeats, "More or less." 

"More or less?" asks Sam, because he can't let _that_ one go. Especially not when she's gone out of her way to emphasize the words. 

Maria gives a theatrical look towards the ceiling. "You remember the Mandarin?" 

Sam gives her an amused look. "I think I heard something, wasn't he some kind of baseball player or something - ?" he says, because she's not the only one who can be a shit. She snorts, and cuts another slice of cake. 

"Funny man," she says. "Well we goddamn well _had_ a fucking op going on him, thanks. In point of fucking fact," she says, turning the simple blunt table knife over and gesturing with it for emphasis, "we already fucking _knew_ that asshole in the videos was a front. I'm not saying," and her voice turns grudging here, "that we were 'on the verge' of wrapping it all up or anything, I am just fucking saying, we _were working on it_." 

"And then Stark tells him 'come at me, bro'," Sam supplies and Maria has to put her fork down and put her face in her hands. 

"Oh my fucking god, you saw that press release, right? Not back then, I mean, the - " 

"The one about the SHIELD data," Sam says, grinning. "Yeah. I mean it was fucking hysterical." 

"Jesus fucking Christ," Maria says, in despairing and quiet. "You know he's not allowed to _make_ press releases without clearing them with Pepper. And was already not allowed. I thought she might kill him. The part where it was hysterical and basically the position we were going to take anyway _notwithstanding_." 

"I notice they didn't take him up on it," Sam replies, and Maria snorts. 

"Hah," she says. "I swear our head of Legal was so disappointed about that. I don't know what's possibly scarier than when her and Stark _agree_ on something. Jesus. Anyway, the Mandarin - point is, then suddenly a gunship is fucking bombing his house." 

"Yeah I can't see that being a good moment," Sam agrees. 

"Although it sure as fucking hell told us the rot went right up into the direct line of succession," Maria muttered. "Not that it did us any good because then our op went on standby." 

"I did kinda wonder - well, afterward," Sam elaborates. "After Insight, actually, when I started getting a handle on how much shit SHIELD did. It seemed kinda - " 

"Yeah, Natasha told us to suspend everything," Maria sighs. "Told Nick, actually." 

Before Sam can ask, or say he didn't know Natasha had that much authority, Maria explains, "Her point was, we had no confirmation Stark was dead, and until you're burying Stark's body he's _not_ dead and that made him a total fucking loose cannon at that point - especially since Pepper disappeared before we could've taken over the official investigation anyway, it was best to assume he was alive, he would be going for the throat, and anything we did would just up the likelihood that the collateral would be worse, so we focused on containment instead. And the thing about Nat is she's _never_ wrong about Stark. I mean," she pauses, "that's probably useful to know - for you, I mean. If you _need_ to predict Stark for some reason, ask Nat. And assume everyone else is wrong." 

"Huh," Sam says. "Good to know." 

"They don't actually get along, a lot of the time," Maria says. She has another bite of cake and looks thoughtful. "She's just never wrong, even if what she's saying is _Stark is a chaotic clusterfuck who destroys every plan he touches, why the hell would we waste the time making one for him to wreck_. Which is what she was saying, basically, so we suspended our op. And she was right, which was fucking irritating - do you know the shit he fucking pulled?" 

"Other than the shit that ended up on TV, nah," Sam says, morbidly curious. "What'd he do?" 

"First off he got into Killian's compound by fucking making bombs out of Christmas tree decorations and overpowered taser-guns out of a rewired glue-gun," Maria tells him. "Like he thought that was a good idea. And would work. And it's fucking infuriating to me that it _did_. Second he fucking got some _kid_ who happened to have a sorry excuse for a lab set up in his broken-down garage to run the repair-shit on his broken-down suit while he fucking did it - I'm not kidding!" Maria protests as Sam chokes on his coffee. 

"I believe you," he says, around coughing. "I'm just still fucking horrified." 

" _I know_ ," Maria says. "Kid was in fucking middle-school. Thank fucking god the kid's mom was understanding. Stark just told us to fucking shut up, that the _kid_ wanted Stark to take him along on the attack on the hideout so we should just be fucking grateful he left the kid at home and didn't give him the opportunity to stow away, _and_ he was gonna make it up to the kid and stuff anyway. That's when Nat left the room to laugh," she adds, sourly. "If you laugh where Stark can see you, you're just encouraging him. So yeah: 'more or less'. With Stark and containment and _common fucking sense_ all you can ever fucking ask for is 'more or less'." 

Sam starts to ask the obvious question, and then catches himself because it's got the obvious answer - but it's not quite fast enough for Maria not to notice, so he replies to the question in her expression. "I was about to ask why you decided to work for him," he explains. "Except then I realized you didn't, did you - you work for Pepper." 

Maria smiles slightly. "I was pretty sure you were smart." Sam gives her an ironic salute. Then her smile turns wry. "Plus, I did kinda need shelter from the people who wanted to put me in the fucking ground." 

Which is another good point. Sam sighs, puts down his fork, and picks up his coffee. "That's messed up, you know. They should be giving you a medal." 

Maria gives him an odd look over her own cup. "I just did my job," she replies. "Literally. On the list of people who should've been given medals and weren't, top slot fucking goes to you." 

Sam sits back on the couch. "Yeah, Madlen said that," he says, without thinking. Then he explains, "My ex," and _then_ he remembers that's kind of misleading if you don't already know a lot about him so he elaborates, "my friend. We were engaged, years ago. We grew up together. We're friends. She's kinda pissed about that." 

Wow, he thinks, articulate, Wilson. 

Maria looks at him over her mug as she finishes her coffee. "I'm gonna skip giving you a hard time and just point out I know you mean the medal, not the being friends," she tells him, solemnly. She sighs. "She's not wrong. I don't know - government's a shit-show right now. Here, everywhere. I don't know how it's going to shake out." 

"Yeah, well," Sam agrees. "We take it one day at a time, and all that." 

"You're here overnight?" Maria asks, sounding like she's actually interested in knowing, not just looking for a way to change the subject. 

"Yeah, I took a long weekend," Sam says. "With an optional extra day if I had to, unofficial with my supervisor, but I think it'll be okay." He watches her out of the corner of his eye for a second and then decides not to be a dick. Well. Not a total dick. "Jesus, Maria," he says, half-laughing. "Just ask before your head explodes, okay?" 

"Yeah you know what, fuck you, Wilson," she says, ruefully, but she's laughing too. She leans forward to grab his cup as well as picking up her own, and the plates, and the cake that's left (one huge slice or two small ones, depending) to go put them on the kitchenette counter. "I am trying _really hard_ to be a normal human being with some damn manners and a vestige of social skills, here." 

Sam shakes his head, thinking about how it's odd how even people who do value their own skills find ways to be down on themselves. Then he thinks of something that might do the trick; says, "Come on, Hill, do you _honestly_ think counsellors and social-workers are any fucking better than you for talking shop even off-duty?" 

It's enough to make her look thoughtful. "Yeah, okay, probably have a point," she admits. "I do try, though." 

"I acknowledge and appreciate the effort," he says, and it's laughing, but not mocking. "And I applaud you making it." 

Maria makes a face at him. "God, you did sound like a psych there," she says, and comes to sit back down. "Alright, fine. Your feelings about the situation in general still the same as when we talked yesterday morning? I mean - " here she shrugs, "I notice you don't seem _depressed_ , so I'm tentatively hoping things aren't even worse than you thought, but . . ." she trails off. 

"Yeah, no, they're not worse," Sam agrees. He exhales, leaning forward so he can rest his forearms on his knees, try to put his thoughts in some kind of order. "No," he says, "no, thoughts aren't quite the same as when I got here, but on the other hand I'm not sure what they are yet. I did get Steve to admit he was kinda filtering what he told me, and to agree to stop," he says, and Maria's eyebrows go up. 

"I'm impressed," she says, and it just sounds honest. Sam's mouth quirks, but it's not enough to be a real smile, he knows. 

"Thanks," he says. "On the flipside Dr Ross told us today that Barnes' prosthetic's probably so indifferently designed that he's got chronic peripheral neuropathy, and that's on top of stuff I've been thinking about how fucked up the musculature on that side of his body's _got_ to be, and I probably don't have to tell you that pain is not good for mental health. And Steve's pretty emphatic that even talking about the arm's not an option, let alone getting him to let anybody take a look at it or touch it - emphatic, and not happy about it. So there's that." 

Maria grimaces, but doesn't interject. 

Sam rubs his palms together idly, looks up at the ceiling. "The food problems are worse than he was telling me," Sam says. "And sleep's a nightmare, excuse the bad joke, and that's not good either. On the other hand," he goes on, thinking it through, "the guy was out reading a book on the couch when Steve took me back to his place, and all he did was stare at me for a minute and it mostly felt like he was waiting for me to - I dunno. Challenge his right to be in on the couch and out where he could be seen or something." 

He takes a deep breath and says, "And then on the third hand, you know everything I said about Steve and investment? Square it." When Maria grimaces, he nods. "Yeah, I know. You know the guy apparently pretty much kept Steve alive to grow up, though?" 

When Maria shakes her head, Sam sighs. "Yeah, well, turns out he did. And I mean like spoon-feeding him when he was sick and Steve's mom had to work, shit like that. Tutoring him to get him through school, giving him somewhere to live when his mom died." 

Maria's arms are folded, and she's looking into the middle distance for a moment. She nods. "He did say something about _even when I had nothing_ , in the paddy-wagon," she notes, distantly. She leans forward, mirroring Sam's posture. He's not sure whether it's deliberate or not. "Okay," she says, quietly, and her voice is a bit different now, "so that's all good and thoughtful and objective and I appreciate it. It's the kind of stuff I need, so I know what's going on, and what I might need to do." 

She looks at her hands, flattens one out and picks at a hangnail with a finger of the other. "And so now from the point of view where the . . . pain-in-the-ass is actually my friend, even if I haven't talked to him since he told me to fucking open fire on him with way, way too fucking many guns -" She takes a deep breath. "Do you think he has a hope in hell of fucking pulling this off?" 

It's a fair question. It's the one Sam's been trying not to ask himself, not because it's not a fair question but because it's an awkward one. He rubs the back of his head, drops his hand again. 

"It's the kinda thing where almost any active hope feels like asking for it," he says, frankly. "Like you're setting yourself up, you know?" 

"Trust me," Maria agrees, with feeling. "I fucking know." 

"Right. But here's the thing," Sam says. Admits. "When the guy showed up he didn't talk. He didn't . . . do anything. He just sat in a room sometimes without even the light on, and tried to hide being sick, and to hide _from_ Steve. He had a kind of a fit, Steve says, smashed up a chair and put his fist through the wall, his right one, and then tried to clean it up and didn't quite do it enough for Steve not to notice, but then he let Steve patch him up and they had a conversation about something he remembered. And now he sits out in the living-room and maybe gets defensive about what a stranger thinks about him being there, Steve says he reads _every_ -damned-thing, writes notes to himself constantly on any scrap of paper he can find, looks shit up on-line - " 

Sam stops, and shrugs. "So we've gone from someone who's damn near catatonic at best, to someone who seems pretty damn driven to find out what he doesn't know, and find the edges of where he might be able to be comfortable. In a few months, without any medications that help, probably with a lot of pain, and only me and sometimes Natasha advising Steve and Steve figuring out a lot of shit by himself. I want to think," he says, taking a deep breath, "I _want_ to think that's close to a fucking miracle, and at least some pretty god-damned good indications, but - " 

Maria nods without saying anything. She's got the distant look in her eyes again, but it's got a new slant. And it's one he's familiar with. 

He can't stop himself from nudging gently with, "Missing someone else?" Somewhere Madlen wants to put her face in her hands and doesn't know why. 

Maria laughs with all the humour of a car crash and scrubs _her_ hands over her face. She sits up, and Sam does to. 

"You know this time she's not even dead," Maria says. "She's in a coma, has been since Insight; she was in the building. Was the only one of SHIELD's psychs Barton would tell the truth to, mostly because she didn't push when he told her that the truth was he wanted her to fuck off and leave that part alone." 

"Smart lady," Sam says, and he means it. He doesn't even have to know the guy, know more about him than he does, to know that. 

"Yeah," Maria agrees. She looks at him and says, "Thank you." 

"Listen," he says, both to lighten the mood and because he means it, "I swear that cake was the best thing I've eaten in at least ten years, you are completely welcome." 

Yeah, he thinks: it does kinda startle her every time she laughs. 

 

Unlike him, Maria _does_ work the next day, so after he thanks her for the cake again, and she thanks him for telling her stuff, she heads up to her own place and Sam decides to take advantage of the apparently limitless access to new movies on the Stark Tower network. 

Later on he orders some wings from, basically, room-service, and enjoys a bath that might as well be a second hot-tub. Maybe he'll get to go home from this trip on equilibrium, instead of feeling like he just ran a marathon. 

He feels like he should touch wood after that. He knocks on the dresser in the other room, just in case.


End file.
